Madoff's Scheme – One Reason To Put the “Smart People” in the Right Places So We Don’t Get Fooled Again

Posted Mar 03 2009 3:09pm

As complicated as the algorithms we all deal with today, financial, healthcare, etc. this story speaks for itself to have “smart” people or “experts” at the top of the helm, who have actual hands on or first hand knowledge, especially with a self regulating business.

Healthcare, is somewhat in the same boat to a degree, regulated but not, and of late with the lacking reserve funds of AIG you might just wonder what really goes on behind the scenes. As what is said about the SEC, lawyers without any financial experience (in other words not in the know on how the formulas or algorithms are run) were running the shop. As we live in a more complicated society with business intelligence software that we use to make most of our decisions today, it is scary and almost ludicrous to have people in charge and accountable without some background in this area to understand how it works and how results are configured, otherwise one just has to simply depend on others to advise them on what to say, and hopefully it is accurate.

We don’t need folks that are only trained in how to “read pieces of paper” only, as he states in this video. I am hopeful with this administration that we get to see some of the “smart” people in charge and not continue to shop at the “political” store, especially when it comes to healthcare. We have seen a lot of fraud within the system, the Ingenix issue for one, and there’s more than likely more where that came from, as Blue Cross was told to stop selling two of their Part D insurance plans as well. You can search around this blog and find plenty of posts with different agencies fining different health insurance companies over the last 2 years.

Hopefully, we will have some leaders that will have the ability to work with business intelligence software and help restructure the country as that is what it will take, as the top leadership roles in healthcare have evolved to where around 70% of the leadership abilities will be Health IT directed and we certainly cannot stand for another repeat in healthcare, as what occurred at the SEC. One thing both the financial world and health insurance companies have in common and have done for years, is a heavy investment in technology to run their formulas and algorithms for profit, big profits, and paid well educated people to work there in the area of business intelligence, Aetna stated 20% of their positions are IT related, something to think about. BD

"What I found out from my dealings with the SEC over eight and a half years is that their people are totally untrained in finance; they're unschooled; they're un-credentialed. Most of them are just merely lawyers without any financial industry experience," Markopolos said."Well, if the people there aren't trained in securities work, what are they trained in?" Kroft asked.

"How to look at pieces of paper that the securities laws require. They can check every piece of paper perfectly and find misdemeanors, and they'll miss all the financial felonies that are occurring because they never look there," Markopolos replied. "Even when pointed to fraud, they're incapable of finding fraud."